Janzen’s Pharmacy Continues to Grow With Fourth Location
by Scott A. Sumner
The locally owned Janzen’s Pharmacy is bucking the trend to large big box national outlets by opening their fourth location in the former RBC branch in Northwood. Just two years ago the pharmacy operated only from their original location on Bay Street “ Our first expansion was to Westfort in 2010 which is going well. The community in Westfort has responded so well to us. The next expansion last year was to the Thunder Bay Medial Centre with our tiny store with two people and it is now giving Westfort a run for it’s money,”said Kathy Pratola, General Manager of Janzen’s Pharmacy. “ It took time for the people to see the change in staff and atmosphere and now it has taken off. We also rotate additional staff there. It is handy when you have your physician right there. We didn’t have that market before. The people who are in the area in the day, say working at the courthouse come in. It is a new clientele. There is a lot of traffic. It is organized chaos with just over 500 square feet!”
Exciting news for the Janzen’s team is they bought a bank building on Edward and Redwood that is conducive to their needs. “ We have always loved that location. It allows us to move into a neighbourhood where we didn’t have coverage before. People like to be close to their pharmacy even with delivery today. We are also going to try a drive through in this location as well. It is a convenience for people. People can call in and pick up their prescription on their way by. You could also drive up, order and we will it deliver later. The customer could also wait while we fill the prescription.’ said Brenda Adams, Owner and Pharmacist at Janzen’s Pharmacy.
The approximately 3500 square building is being totaling redone with new flooring, ventilation systems and walls. It will include 8 exam rooms, as there will be 4 family physicians moving in to the building. There will be a nice waiting room as well as pharmacy work area. Many of the newer physicians coming out of school like the turnkey operation as they can get help with the business side according to Brenda Adams. The new location will have basic professional items like cold products and vitamins but stay focused on the health side. “ Our numbers show us it will work well. We are quick and efficient at renovating buildings as we have done it many times now. The location here is excellent. The renovation is going well with Tony's Cabinets who we have used before as coordinator on our projects. Form Architecture completed the plans. ” said Brenda Adams. “ When we announced the new location we received many calls and support from people to transfer in their prescriptions. Our focus is to take care of customers. Pharmacy was like this in the past. We are starting a whole new trend in multi team health care because we have a nurse practioner, physician’s, pharmacists and have professional relationships with other medical people in the community. We are expanding our scope into almost a one stop health care.”
In this day of attracting health care staff the Janzen’s team has had great success in growing their team. “ We have had great results in getting staff and are now at about 75 people, including 14 pharmacists, with all our locations. Some have been hired in anticipation of Northwood opening. Our current staff have helped us by referring their friends and other people they know to work on our team.” said Kathy Pratola. “ We love Thunder Bay. Thunder Bay has been great to us. People in Thunder Bay still want the personal touch. We train new staff in our way such as when someone comes in with a problem we take care of it with our staff. If something drastic has happened in their life we have people on staff that will help them know what to do. For example we have a clinical coordinator that might help with areas such as smoking succession or diabetes. Our patient navigator that will help with our services and other services in the community to bring all the patients needs together and come up with a plan. We will them find the product they need. The goal is to guide them through the whole process even if we don’t offer that product or service.”said Brenda Adams. “ We are always looking for growth to get good coverage for our clients. People were saying they wanted us to come to their area. Our growth is determined by the needs of the community. We listen to our customer or potential customers asking us to be in their area.,” said Kathy Pratola.
Vincent Disimone is the Owner / Operator of Tony’ Cabinets which was founded in 1968 and is project managing the whole renovation project for Janzen’s. “ We have been working with Janzen's for over 20 years now together on their projects. The renovation is on schedule and by the end of December we will be ready to go,” said Vince. “ Our company does the millwork including cabinets for the exam rooms. We can do office retro’s and home renovations from start to finish and handle the whole job with other sub trades. At Janzen's we used a prefinished cabinetry designed for the pharmacy with specialized drawers for their RX’s. Over the years we have designed the cabinets for Brenda and her team and fine tuned them to meet their needs.”
